Archangels and SIB back trio of firms with £3.7m

A £3.7 million investment by the Archangels syndicate and the Scottish Investment Bank will enable three of Scotland’s most promising firms to move to the next stage of growth.

The investment in Calcivis, NetThings and Reactec – all based in Edinburgh – adds to earlier support for the companies and takes total joint funding by the two institutions to £6.8m this year. Around 70 of Archangels’ investor members chose to participate in these funding rounds.

Calcivis, located at the Bioquarter, has received £2.6m to fund further development of its dental imaging system. This investment has also helped Calcivis secure a further £2m grant from the European Horizon 2020 SME instrument programme.

Chief executive, Adam Christie, said: “Having now run our first clinical study of the device, this funding will enable us to finalise the design of our first commercial product then test launch it in one European country, most likely the UK, and to complete the US regulatory process. I’ve worked with Archangels since 2007 and I’ve always found them to be very engaged partners in the whole process of creating successful companies.”

NetThings has developed a platform that simplifies the connecting and controlling of devices over the internet, for businesses and consumers, providing insight and energy management with the aim of helping people to start managing and controlling costs and energy usage. The company plans to use its additional funding of £700,000 to expand its offering from the domestic to the SME market.

Chief executive, George McGhee, said: “We are launching a new product range into the SME market in the second half of 2015 and this additional funding was essential to the completion of the development of the products and to taking them to market. It allowed us to invest in some key software skills and to add more experience to the commercial side of the business. This will enable our objective of achieving breakeven by the end of this year.”

Reactec has developed a unique solution to help companies whose employees use heavy tools to monitor and analyse their exposure to potentially harmful hand and arm vibration (HAV).

Jacqui McLaughlin, chief executive, said: “This £400,000 of funding will allow us to invest in our business development capability, creating three roles within Reactec and improving our routes to market. We also plan to upgrade the technology in our product to further advance our competitive edge in a market place, which is attracting new entrants.”

Andy Laing, investment executive at Archangels (pictured), said: “These are great examples of growing Scottish businesses who have the potential to compete on a world stage and whose ideas, without early stage investment and ongoing support, would never have been realised. Scotland needs more enterprises like these and at Archangels we’re happy to support them.”

Kerry Sharp, head of Scottish Investment Bank, said: “It’s always great to see companies with an entrepreneurial mindset prosper and grow with support and investment. Working together in partnerships is the foundation of our operating model. The integrated approach of investment and support here in Scotland is building a track record of success stories.”